Cool San Diego

STUNNA SHADES: "Stunnas" refers to the type of oversized sunglasses that make the Terminator's wraparounds look modest by comparison. Worn 'round the clock, indoors and outdoors, and most especially behind the wheel, where nobody can see or be impressed by the designer label orbiting your plumber's crack or how trim your phone/iPod/Blackberry/waist/goatbeard is. Modeled after old-style aviator glasses, stunnas are celebrated in song by Federation featuring E-40, whose "Stunna Glasses at Night" (remaking Corey Hart's "Sunglasses at Night") surely represents the only time someone has ever rhymed "Spider Man" with "cayenne" ("Gotta pair make me look like Spider Man/ same color of the pepper called cayenne/ at night no sun don't need a tan/ old school like a string and tin can").CELL PHONE STRAPS: The first time I saw a young lady in slinky attire reach down near her shoe to answer a ringing phone (this past month, at Stingaree), I thought the Maxwell Smart shoe-phone had finally been invented. I soon noticed others with phones strapped to their ankles, courtesy of the CPC (cell phone case) Strap by HTL Wireless (around $50 retail). Also worn on the wrist and arm, where multifunction phones meant to impress with lots of LCD lights tend to make the wearer look like an uncharacteristically fashionable Borg from Star Trek, one whose game involves stating -- however subliminally -- "I will assimilate you, resistance is futile." Users have found the Strap can be worn with portable music players, enabling proliferation in public applications outside those denoted by scant clothing and a dearth of pockets. Some use their Straps to carry a cell phone flask, which hides four ounces of your favorite libation within a realistic-looking dummy phone, the new-millennium version of a Pepsi sticker for beer cans.

ECOLOGICAL GAS: Back when Kermit T. Frog sang, "It's Not Easy Bein' Green," truer words were never croaked. Nowadays, though, even the Academy Awards have gone green, and there's no reason you can't too, even if you think "ecology" is a math course at City College. Alternative fuels such as ethanol first became available locally in 2003, with the opening of the RTC Fuel Depot on El Cajon Boulevard. Offering nine types of fuel, six of them for AFVs (alternative fuel vehicles) and three for bi-fuel, flex-fuel, and conventional cars, their biodiesel tank was the first in the city to dispense fuel made from recycled french fry grease. Now known as the Pearson Ford Fuel Depot, they carry a biodiesel made from soybeans called "BioWillie," named after country singer Willie Nelson, who endorses it and christened the West Coast's first BioWillie pump in a Pearson ceremony last year, when he poured several golden gallons into his tour-bus tank.

BOOZE IN DISGUISE: So-called "alcopop" is alcohol that looks like a soft drink. Fruity flavors sporting pastel labels are so easily mistaken for soda that teenagers brazenly display and consume them on area high school campuses, prompting the drinks to be nicknamed "cheerleader beer." Seagram's Pineapple Coconut Calypso Colada is blue and smells like suntan lotion, making it ideal for surreptitious sipping, while Mike's Hard Cranberry Lemonade -- pink, with 5.2 percent alcohol -- looks and smells so innocuous that, in unmarked containers, it could fool even a taste test by enquiring figures of authority (cops, employers, teachers, parents, etc.). Needless to say, this irks said authorities, automatically guaranteeing alcopop as trendy for teens.

COCAINE ENERGY DRINK: "Instant rush," "no crash!" and "possible feelings of euphoria" are among the promises made on the website for Cocaine Energy Drink. "San Diego is one of the two cities test-marketing this brand, which has the same effects as [the drug] cocaine," says Dannah Hosford of the Youth Advocacy Coalition, which has petitioned local retailers to stop stocking the drink. "Cocaine has three and a half more times caffeine than Red Bull and is being marketed as legal liquid cocaine. It numbs the throat and causes a euphoric rush...7-Eleven has already pulled them off the shelves, and Circle K is considering it. I mean, it's just another way of putting drugs directly into kids' hands." At around two dollars per can, Cocaine contains around 280 milligrams of caffeine (a cup of coffee usually tops out at around 100 milligrams).

FENG SHUI HAIRCUTS: So you want your head to enjoy a positive energy flow, or "chi," as they say in China. First you fill out a form, with personal data such as your astrological sign, if you like sugar, and whether or not your diet includes meat. The cut begins with the stylist holding a compass near your head, since direction is related to intended results (cutting north is said to enhance romantic success). Followers of feng shui will tell you that the wrong haircut interrupts your positive energy flow, bringing bad luck along with those bad-hair days and preventing you from achieving success in life's endeavors, something working women and aging hippies have long known and decried. Cosmically balanced haircuts average around $200.

BREEDER BLING: Just because you're rolling a rug rat doesn't mean you can't aim to impress with the Cadillac of baby buggies. A Rock Star Baby Infinity Stroller enables the well-heeled parents of La Jolla, Del Mar, and Rancho Santa Fe to keep up with any Jones on the (gated) block, weighing in at 24 pounds and averaging around $500. It comes with height-adjustable handles, multiple-position features, car-seat adaptability, a removable hood, lockable swivel front wheels, and air-inflated pneumatic rear tires for a smooth ride no matter how bumpy the parking lot at Neiman Marcus (in case the escalator gives you a flat, an air pump is included). You can thank/blame the revered/reviled Jon Bon Jovi, who endorses/sells the stroller/status symbol alongside partner/drummer Tico Torres (possibly/probably best known/notorious for marrying/divorcing model/uh...model Eva Herzigova).

GRAMMATIQUE BAGS AND PURSES: Frequently seen on the scene and dusting the bar at style-centered events such as Club Fashion Whore -- held twice monthly at San Diego Sports Club -- these individually handmade bags and purses have all the colors of a Deadhead's T-shirt closet, but with stylistic touches such as the occasional silk necktie purse strap. Embroidered bags of Asian influence come with their own attached "chopsticks," just one of the whimsical touches lavished by local designer Krystina Grammatica, who calls herself "the Grecian Dynamo" (referring to her ethnic heritage and the prolific bursts of energy that go into her creations). Some of the more oblong Grammatique purses that dangle bear unfortunate resemblance to festive colostomy bags, but they're the ideal accessory for snaking a week's worth of chow off the all-you-can-eat buffet.